A quote: "Old guys tend to have better connections, more influence, and—how to put this?—more money. Their credit cards work. Their cars don't fall apart five miles after they turn off pavement. They have better gear, and they take better care of it. Old guys spend more time sitting up late after the family's asleep, and in these hours your old guy will plan and replan his upcoming expedition, put new laces on his wading shoes, tie flies, dress in all his Arctic gear in order to see what it's like to move around in, call another insomniac old guy and check out up-to-the-minute river conditions, and so on. Old guys adventure more in their minds beforehand, and that makes them more prepared in the field. Old guys in some cases (not including mine) can do a bit less physically, so they have to use their brains more. You are taken more seriously by people who rent canoes and cabins if you're accompanied by a sober and thoughtful and knowledgeable-looking old guy. On any adventure, it's always an advantage to bring an old guy along as a check and corrective on the more impetuous young. And if he somehow can't or won't be that, at least he can cuss and stomp and have steam come out of his ears in a Yosemite Sam–ish manner."

...or so the series of T-shirts say. I wanna know what it is that we supposedly rule.

I am the token "old guy" on nearly every backpacking trip. I can never find guys my own age to hike with, so I have to hang out with the young punks in their 20's and early 30's. It kinda works out though. They usually are laboring under 45 to 60 pound packs whereas mine is rarely over 10 pounds, and often less. Thus I can usually keep up with them pretty well and can actually pass them on long switchback climbs. So maybe there is something to the idea that old guys rely on brains more than brawn to get the job done.

That is, until our brains wear out too. Enjoy it while you got it, I guess :)

There is a story within the Australian bushwalking clubs of a sweet young thing who decided to take up walking. So she joined a club her friend belonged to and went along to a meeting. She signed up for a walk and met the people going on it.

But she found that most of the people going on the trip were ... like ... old. She confided this to her friend, but her friend reassured her that they were all very nice people. OK, so she decided to go on the walk.

Afterwards she admitted that her friend was right. All the old guys were really nice. They waited for her on top of every hill to make sure she could catch up and manage.